1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to integrated circuit devices capable of controlling an image data processing device and a network connection device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printers and other image forming devices can be connected to the Internet, LAN and other networks and be used to form images from data received via such networks. Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 11-53139 proposes equipping two separate sets of integrated circuit devices to such an image forming device, one for mainly performing communications and another for mainly performing image formations. Such a configuration would enable parallel processing and improve processing speed.
A recent trend in semiconductor technology is to use an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) in which integrated are a CPU and a hardware (ports, buses and controllers that control the ports and the buses) connected to the CPU. ASIC simplifies control board manufacture and improves manufacturing efficiency of image forming devices.
However, when the integrated circuit devices used specifically for communications and those used specifically for image formation coexist, as described above, the communications ASIC and the image forming ASIC need to be separately designed. The same problem also applies to scanners that scan images concurrently with performing communication tasks.